Bits of Time
by Sunpies
Summary: Really, life is little more than bits of time. Fifty themes: Neji/Saku.
1. Fifty Themes: Part One

_Fifty Themes: Part One  
-Sunpies-_

Disclaimer: I do not own _Naruto_.

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#1: Motion

Between missions and training, their days move forward in a mind-numbing blur that feels like motion sickness.

#2: Cool

Neji enjoys being cool or even cold when he compares it to the muggy heat of Konoha's summers. Sakura is happiest when the sun pours down on her bare shoulders like liquid warmth, purging her of winter's horrible chill. This difference makes it incredibly hard for them to sleep in the same bed.

#3: Young

They both know they were young... or are young. But if that is the case, neither of them understands how they can feel so old.

#4: Last

Sakura doesn't know what he dreams about, but some times she wakes up to find Neji holding her like she's his last stronghold in the world.

#5: Wrong

Sakura is never wrong. Ever. Which makes for long and heated arguments because Neji knows for a fact that it is impossible for _him_ to be wrong.

#6: Gentle

Neji is surprised at how gentle Sakura is the first time she heals him.

Sakura is surprised at how gentle that caustic mouth of his is when he kisses her for the first time.

#7: One

When they talk about children, Sakura admits that she wouldn't mind having one or two little Hyuuga's running around. Neji is appalled by the thought of one or two children; any decent woman, especially his wife, should have at least six.

(Sakura never does find out exactly how the Hyuuga manages to fit both feet so far into his mouth)

#8: Thousand

There are a thousand different shades of pink in Sakura's hair. There are tiny streaks in it so pale that they almost look white and odd strands so dark they glint burgundy when they're held up in the light.

It takes Neji several months to notice, but just a few of Sakura's darkest pink strands are tucked into their eldest son's dark brown hair.

#9: King

Neji is the king of his house. Unfortunately, as any good king will tell you, at least half the job of a leader is composed of sacrificing for the good of one's people.

He decides that Sakura, in this case, is surely one of his people and therefore he has no reason at all to feel ashamed at being ordered to do the shopping.

#10: Learn

Hyuuga Kuuya unlocks the Byakugen at age four and masters the Hakke Kaiten by age ten. These are the only two times Neji allows his son to see him cry.

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_Fifty Themes: Part One  
-Sunpies-_

_For Lady Silvamord_


	2. Fifty Themes: Part Two

_Fifty Themes: Part Two  
__-Sunpies-_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto_

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#11: Loyalty

Neji has to face death before he learns that his first loyalty is to his family, not his village.

#12: Wait

Nobody but Kakashi and Naruto know that Sakura got tired of waiting and asked Neji to marry her.

#13: Change

Although he is assured by multiple sources that she hasn't changed that much, Neji is positive that there is something dramatically different about the way he sees Sakura.

#14: Command

Naruto's first writ as hokage is for Neji to cease violating Haruno Sakura. When Neji "flaunts" his disobedience, Naruto has ANBU arrest him.

It takes several hours for Sakura to find Naruto, but only a few minutes to "persuade" him to release Neji.

(Naruto misses the council meeting the next day, waiting for his jaw to heal.)

#15: Hold

"You could at least hold my hand." Sakura said, shoving the rejected hand into her pocket.

Neji is silent for a long moment. "You could wear that nurses' outfit around home more often. I suppose we both have things to work on."

#16: Need

It's a good thing he's married to a medic because honestly, it seems like he finds himself needing a hospital more often than he needs to replace his socks.

#17: Vision

"The research in the archives is amazing. I wish Tsunade-sama had given me access a long time ago." Sakura mused, exhilarated by her finds over the course of the day.

"I am glad you enjoyed yourself." Neji replied congenially, more or less listening as he perused a scroll.

"Yeah... Neji, I was just wondering..."

He paused in his reading, distracted by the prolonged silence after her question. "What is it?"

"Does blindness run in your family?"

"No... why?"

Sakura shook her head. "No reason."

The Hyuuga and the Uchiha are only distantly related.

#18: Attention

Sakura never figured Neji for the attentive type in a relationship. However it isn't long before she has to ask him for a little space. In his own slightly crazy way he's trying very hard, but there are only so many activities she feels comfortable doing as he looks on in stony silence.

#19: Soul

Neji often thinks how odd it is that first Naruto, then Sakura, then his own son keep adding pieces to his soul. He thinks it is perhaps especially bemusing given that he wasn't aware his soul was missing anything.

#20: Picture

It isn't surprising that Neji is a visual person; his mind is a never-ending pile of snapshot after snapshot, seen in the perfect clarity of the Byakugen, that lead him to his memories.

In his favorite mental picture of Sakura she is lying naked on the bed beneath him, her hair spread out over one of his pillows as she smiles up at him with hooded eyes the color of the forest.

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_Fifty Themes: Part Two  
__-Sunpies-_

_For Lady Silvamord_


	3. Fifty Themes: Part Three

_Fifty Themes: Part Three  
-Sunpies-_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto et al._

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#16: Need

Sakura never would have thought Neji needed her, but with a blistering fever it's her name he keeps calling and she's the only one who can get him to sleep.

#17: Vision

Their second son only has the Byakugen in one eye; the other belongs to his mother.

#18: Animals

Sakura doesn't particularly care for animals; they're cute to look at but that's about it. She has no desire to own them.

It ends up being a good thing as Neji can't stand the idea of cages, leashes, or collars. Which is why he releases Ino's pet bird the first time they're invited to dinner.

#19 & #20 (I already did these and forgot)

#21: Fool

"Hey! This is where I first treated you. Do you remember? You, and your leg, and Tsunade talking about amputation and bone splinters?"

"...Yes, I can somehow manage to recall that." He ground his teeth as she reached to extract the fragment of metal from his shoulder.

"Hmm... Tenten is normally so careful about her weapons." Sakura set the bloody bit of steel onto a stand with her tools. "Remind her that she needs to replace whatever she was fighting with; it's too old."

Neji nodded. "Thank you, Sakura." He could already feel the cool buzz of her chakra pulling together muscle and skin.

"You didn't call me Haruno." Sakura stated, obviously pleased. "You sentimental fool."

We're all fools in love.

#22: Mad

When Sakura gets truly mad she gets violent and when the violence is over she cries.

Neji, as he's gotten older, gets quiet when he's angry and it's like the charged calm before the storm.

Strangely, they both think the other is just slightly mad to express their anger quite like that.

#23: Child

Their eldest son dies on an S-class jounin mission. Even in their grief, neither of them can bear to say that he was only twelve years old.

#24: Now

Now Neji barely knows Sakura. He requested a medic-nin for what amounts to a suicide mission and was surprised the hokage's apprentice was sent.

Now Neji has been on enough missions with Sakura to despise other medic-nins for their obvious shortcomings.

Now Neji has learned to rely on Sakura. Their steady teamwork has placed her with his team on more missions than he can count and the job always feel excessively... injurious when she's not there.

Now Neji realizes she's come to mean something to him.

Now Sakura is glad that the Hyuuga genius has caught up.

#25: Shadow

A. Shadows under Neji's eyes are always painfully apparent against his pale skin.

B. Sakura remarks off-handedly that whenever she sees a shadow she thinks about Shikamaru.

Neji makes it a habit after that to pull Sakura into alleys, dark corners, and unlit rooms; damned if he won't give her something Not-Nara related to connect with shadows.

#26: Goodbye

Neither of them ever say goodbye. Sakura tells people to come back safely and Neji rarely says anything at all. Neither of them believe there is anything good about leaving.

#27: Hide

Playing hide-n-seek with a Byukagen user is dumb, but their third child goes through a period where that's all she want to do. So Sakura grudgingly plays.

Sakura's patience is considerably more remarkable given the way Neji smirks from his seat in the trees as he gives his little girl hints.

#28: Fortune

Sakura always knew that the Hyuuga clan was old, powerful, and wealthy. But it's one thing to know it and another thing to understand it.

When Neji becomes the head of the Hyuuga and is suddenly in charge of some of their finances, Sakura has a hard time merely comprehending that much money.

#29: Safe

Sakura feels safe around Neji. Not that she can't protect herself, but fighting alongside an ANBU captain makes her feel like there's nothing the two of them together can't take on.

Neji feels safe around Sakura. There aren't too many things he can't handle on his own, but she always manages to fix him when he comes across one.

Their younger children rarely know fear and believe their parents are just short of gods, omniscient and all powerful, until Kuuya dies and neither parent can bring him back.

#30: Belong

Tatsuhiko barely looks like a Hyuuga. His skin is darker than his fellow clansmen, though not by much. His hair is a deep, dark red and thick like a Hyuuga's but not nearly so smooth. When he wears it long it looks like the manes of the dragons that cover a wall of his father's study. He will always be just a scant inch taller than his mother where his older brother -the true Hyuuga of the two of them- stands an inch or so taller than their father.

The only real sign that he sees is his left eye. It is white and pupil-less even as his other eye is a traitorous green.

What he doesn't see is that he acts more like a Hyuuga than his outspoken and painfully abrupt brother ever could.

------

_Fifty Themes: Part Three  
-Sunpies-_

_For Lady Silvamord_


	4. Fifty Themes: Part Four

_Fifty Themes: Part Four  
__-Sunpies-_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto_

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#31: Book

Mitsuyo is the perfect shinobi. She sees her brother's imperfections and mistakes and works in her silent way to beat out similar imperfections in herself. By the time she's fourteen she is being praised as the light of her generation.

This makes it all the more surprising when she leaves the village at seventeen to go wandering and finish her book.

#32: Eye

Neji has an eye for painting. It takes Sakura fifteen years to find out where those magnificent paintings, all with the same basic style, are coming from.

#33: Never

There has never been a time when Neji thought Sakura would be with him forever. But somehow, he never realized what living without her would mean.

#34: Sing

Sakura and Neji are sent on an undercover mission to one of the smallest hidden villages in the world. It takes months and months to prepare for the mission; the people have completely different customs and speak an odd variation of the language that the rest of the world speaks. It's difficult, but they manage.

It's during a religious ceremony on that mission that Sakura discovers that Neji can sing. He has a deep voice that has a tendency to go flat and he speaks the words more than sings them, but his voice is pleasant to listen to.

It's during a religious ceremony on that mission that Neji discovers Sakura can sing. Her voice is mid-range for a woman and fragile -it reminds him of wind soughing through the trees at home. He's never heard her sing before and doesn't hear it again until she sings to their children. When he can, he stands in the doorway and listens to her.

#35: Sudden

Mitsuyo doesn't speak, write, read or master any of the jutsu of their clan until she's five. It goes on for so long that both Neji and Sakura start to worry if there isn't something wrong with their little girl.

It isn't until one rather undistinguishable day in September that everything changes.

"Morning, Honey. Do you want some dango in your lunch today?" Sakura asked as she moved four, cold gyoza into the small, plain bento box.

Mitsuyo shrugged, her black hair bobbing under a stubborn chin. "I guess so."

To both of her parents, who almost cry in relief, the change seems very sudden.

To both of her brothers, who have seen her practicing and have heard her talking to the fish in the pond, the change seems anything but sudden.

#36: Stop

When Sakura finds Kuuya teaching a four-year-old Tatsuhiko the Gentle Fist, it turns into the biggest fight since the Kakashi-umeboshi debate.

Neji is proud that his older son is teaching the younger. Sakura feels that such a dangerous technique can wait until Tatsu is old enough to reach the bathroom sink without needing a stool.

A nine-year-old Kuuya explains to his mother that Tatsu has already made remarkable progress and it would be bad to stop now.

After three days and four nights, Sakura gives in. "Fine! Do whatever, I don't care. You just better make sure he doesn't die." She stabs a finger in Neji's face. "He dies, I'm coming for you first."

It just slips Neji's mind to tell Sakura that he started teaching Kuuya the same technique as soon as the boy stopped wobbling when he walked across a room.

#37: Time

Time seems to stop when Shizune tells Neji that Sakura isn't coming home.

#38: Wash

Sakura is alone when Kuuya comes home from his first B-class mission, bloody and limping.

After patching him up, Sakura washes her son's blood from the carpet and spends the next hour sobbing in the hallway closet.

#39: Torn

As clan head, Neji is torn between staying at home and caring for things there, and following Sakura into the field to take care of her out there.

#40: History

History will remember Hyuuga Neji as one of the men who destroyed the branch house-main house system.

History will remember Sakura as the Hachidaime hokage and one of the most powerful women in history.

_In the end, Neji refused to let others be trapped the way he had been._

_In the end, Sakura wasn't left behind._

----

_Fifty Themes: Part Four  
__-Sunpies-_

_For Lady Silvamord_


	5. Fifty Themes: Part Five

_Fifty Themes: Part Five  
-Sunpies-_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto et al._

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#41: Power

One of the biggest storms in recorded history rolls directly over Konoha during Neji and Sakura's weekly dinner with Hinata and Naruto. As a pleasant addition to the event Sakura invited Ino, who invited Shikamaru (only because, as she woefully explained, she lacked anything more than a boy-toy, at the moment).

Dinner is only twenty minutes in before the power starts to flicker with the raging wind, before going out entirely.

The room goes silent for a few seconds. The only sound is the wind roaring against the windows. "Hey, Neji." Naruto says at least, breaking the silence, and Sakura can hear the grin in his voice even though she can't see it.

"What is it, Naruto?"

"Can you tell me what I'm doing to Hinata right now?" Hinata's involvement with Naruto has always been a sore spot for the Hyuuga genius. Naruto has learned to take full advantage of that in the last few years.

"Naruto, please!" Hinata cries in dismay at her husband's remark.

Shikamaru sighs, but both Ino and Sakura can hear the faint amusement in the exhalation. "Hinata would have been too embarrassed to say anything if you were molesting her, and if either Sakura or Ino was your target, there would be more screaming. And I can safely rule out myself so..."

"You're groping my knee, idiot."

"...Oh."

#42: Bother

Neji finds extraneous chatter a bother, and frankly, some times Sakura's seemingly constant need for interaction is annoying, and almost always bewildering.

More often than not though, he finds himself nodding or grunting in response to her, just because he knows she needs it.

#43: God

Neji doesn't believe in a god, but he does believe in some sort of higher power. He follows Shikamaru's logic in that there is too much in the world that works too well for everything to be a coincidence.

Sakura doesn't know what she believes. There's so much beauty in the world, it's hard to think it's all just some kind of cosmic luck. But at night, Sakura still has nightmares about Sasuke, Tsunade's broken body on the examination table, and the team of jounin bringing her dead son home. When she wakes up after those nights, tears fresh on her face, there doesn't seem to be a god to believe in.

#44: Wall

Tatsuhiko and Mitsuyo are sparring one afternoon when it starts to rain. They take it inside because, even though their parents have forbidden sparring in the house after the Kakashi-umeboshi incident, things are going too well to stop now.

When Neji comes home he takes one look at his children trying to paste the rice paper wall back up, and then goes back outside to meditate.

#45: Naked

Neji loves to look at Sakura naked, especially right before she wakes up. Every thing about her seems soft in the mornings and he loves the way his hand rests perfectly in the curve at her hip.

Sakura would never tell him this, but there's a reason she wakes up so late that she has to share the shower with him.

#46: Drive

Each of their children face being a shinobi differently.

Their oldest son is generally bored by the idea of practicing, training, and well... most things. He can't be forced into training by threats, bribery or a rival as he generally laughs at the concept of being challenged. Sakura and Neji have discovered that it helps if they disguise things as a game or have someone train with him that he likes to fool around with.

Their younger son discovers a rival in his older brother and, while his brother refuses to acknowledge the rivalry, a one-sided rivalry works just fine in providing Tatsuhiko with the drive he needs.

Their daughter realizes when she's very young that death is the only rival that really matters and finds her drive in knowing that mistakes mean losing her important things and people.

#47: Harm

It's hard to explain to children, who notice everything, why they can't hit their siblings but they're being trained to stick a kunai in the right spot between a target's ribs.

#48: River

There's a small river that runs behind the Hyuuga property. As a child, Neji followed it all around Konoha and supposes that it flows in from the eastern edge of the forest. The small inlet is behind the main house and is surrounded by trees but for a few stray beams of light that dapple the area green and soft gold.

It is possibly Neji's favorite spot in the entire world. This idea is only confirmed when he brings Sakura there; he meditates while she sleeps but he's never been happier.

#49: Hunger

A mission in snow country buries Sakura alive in the castle of the lord she's guarding. By the time the retrieval team can dig everyone out, there are only four people left to rescue.

Even years later, Sakura doesn't talk about what happened there.

#50: Believe

Sakura lay on the gurney, her color leaching away as the internal bleeding intensified.

"Everything will be okay, right? Everything will be fine?"

Shizune pushed against Neji's side, working to hold Sakura together. Neji held Sakura's hand tightly even when she couldn't return his grip. "Yes, of course it will. Everything will be fine."

And Sakura believed him even as she slipped into the darkness.

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_Fifty Themes: Part Five  
-Sunpies-_

_For Lady Silvamord_


	6. Fifty Themes II: Part One

_Fifty Themes II: Part One  
-Sunpies-_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto_

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#1: Walking

Over the years, Sakura and Neji have walked almost every main road, side street and alley of Konoha. The time spent there and what is done stays between them; they have no reason for it to ever go beyond their odd pairing. They talk, listen or just observe the people of their village; people they risk their lives to protect.

They go as colleagues, then as friends, and then... as whatever weird middle-ground they now find themselves walking.

#2: Waltz

Neji can dance better than almost everyone she knows. He's not like most of the guys Sakura dances with who spend half the time stepping on her feet and the other half trying to grope her. Basically, she's grateful that he took the next dance from Naruto who almost broke her feet on the easy dances.

Unfortunately, as soon as she's withing earshot, he starts talking. His questions range from the harmless, bored conversation of formal parties, to the borderline inappropriate questions of someone as self-assured as the Hyuuga genius.

When she dances with him, half the time is spent trying to keep her steps as light and fast as the Hyuuga's and the other is spent dodging his intrusive questions. It's a complicated dance.

#3: Wishes

Sakura is so tired of wishing. Wishing didn't make her stronger, wishing didn't bring Sasuke back to them. It didn't give Tsunage just a few more years and it didn't save her all those times she was in danger.

Wishing is useless. She's the living proof.

Which is why, after months spent wishing and hoping that the Hyuuga genius would just do it, she finally just asked him out herself.

#4: Wonder

Neji and Sakura both wonder about what will happen to them after they die. It's one of the few things they have in common although they've never discussed it.

They both know that shinobi life demands sacrifices in the form of blood, tears, and your soul if you've got one.

But late at night, when there's no one listening but the stars, the idea burns at the back of their brains slow and steady; what will be left when they die?

#5: Worry

Sakura worries that she's too weak, that she's too fat, and that her hair isn't long/short/thick/shiny/pretty enough. She worries that someday her friends won't come home, she worries that someday they'll need her help and she won't be strong enough to save them. She worries, no matter how strong she gets, that she'll get left behind. She also worries that someday she'll come home from a mission and her goldfish will be dead because Ino forgot to feed them (and she's pretty sure goldfish don't go to heaven).

Neji worries that Sakura's crazy.

#6: Whimsy

Neji isn't whimsical. The closest he ever came was the day he agreed not to use his Byukagen to see what Sakura was getting him for his birthday.

All in all, Sakura figures that's okay; she has enough whimsy for both of them.

(She buys him a book on the lives and habitats of birds)

(He knows two and a half weeks before hand about the bird book because he finds it in her underwear drawer)

#7: Wasteland

It's cold enough on the slope of the valley for the rain to become soft, fluffy snow. It sticks in his hair and in the surgical mask over his face. He would tug it down but...

"There's nothing we could have done." Sakura reassures her team leader. She'd been brought to help the people, but the disease had spread too quickly.

"There's nothing we could have done." Neji says, his eyes never leaving the valley. His team had been brought for when the people couldn't be helped.

Sakura touches his arm, the muscles in it are cold stone under her fingers. "We should go, Hyuuga-san." Neji nods stiffly and they turn their backs on the village as snow falls on the blood-bathed earth -white over red.

#8: Whiskey/Rum

Sakura is a loose drunk in every sense of the word. All of her angers, fears, and sadnesses go pouring out as alcohol goes pouring in. She even drinks more when she's drunk. It's entertaining for her friends in the same way that watching a cart crash is entertaining.

Neji is a solemn drunk. It's pretty obvious he gets drunk faster than Sakura, but unlike the unlucky kunoichi, he gets quieter and more somber as an evening of drinking progresses. Secretly, he knows that he finds just about everything a strange combination of hilarious and seductive when he's drunk.

#9: War

Although many people seem to think Neji would be the natural choice for the clan leader of the Hyuuga, it takes an exile, a death, and a massive civil war before the idea is even a possibility.

#10: Weddings

It's the nature of shinobi to forego marriage or any lasting bonds. So when a shinobi wedding does come along, the entire village is involved (especially when the wedding is for an important Hyuuga and the hokage's apprentice).

Sakura spends the day after her wedding in the hospital helping other medics with the numerous cases of alcohol poisoning and the intense hangovers.

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_Fifty Themes II: Part One  
-Sunpies-_

_For Lady Silvamord_


	7. Fifty Themes II: Part Two

_Fifty Themes II: Part Two  
-Sunpies-_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto et al._

---------

#11: Birthday

They're married five years before they get to celebrate a birthday together. Their schedules wouldn't even have allowed for that if Sakura hadn't been dealing with Konoha's first outbreak of the measles in fifty years and Neji hadn't punctured a lung.

#12: Blessing

Both Neji and Sakura think that Kakashi becoming hokage was a blessing for Naruto. As close as her friend ever got to Tsunade, Naruto was only able to see the "Protector" part of being hokage. He never seemed to realize that being hokage was as much about saving as it was about smoothing the ruffled feathers of dignitaries and providing the village with stability when the whole world seemed like it was shaking.

Kakashi, as per his usual, forced Naruto to look at these parts of the job. There was a brief week where Naruto's dream seemed to falter when he saw the chains that the village would expect him to wear every time he put on the hat.

They both know, even before Kakashi tells them, that Naruto will give up his freedom for his dream. That's his way of the ninja.

#13: Bias

"Women are weaker than men." Neji said with a shrug as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Normally, Sakura fumed, this is where she would punch him and he would go flying across the village. She ground her teeth into a semblance of a grin; not this time. "Men are dumber than women." She stated just as plainly.

Neji smirked. "I'll tell that to Shikamaru the next time I see him."

Sakura's grin widened. "And you can enlighten our hokage with your findings the next time you see her. Oh, here she comes now." Behind Neji, the hokage, hearing her name, handed a sheaf of papers off to Shizune and came to join them.

"Enlighten me about what?"

#14: Burning

The best sex they ever have is right after their biggest fight. Sakura's chakra lays close to her skin and it makes every brush against him scald and tingle so intensely it's almost painful. That night she rides him mercilessly until he screams her name in a way she remembers for the rest of her life.

Sakura feels herself burning with exhaustion and the white flare of her own chakra. Looking down at him, feeling his vice-like grip on her hips, she becomes addicted to the heat.

Neji thinks that if this is what it means to be burned alive then fuck if he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life dying.

#15: Breathing

Sakura spends her days surrounded by suffering and death. On those days where it is the worst, she comes home and listens to Neji breathe. In those moments before she can bring herself to think about the day, he's the only real thing in the whole world because he's breathing and the people she couldn't save aren't.

#16: Breaking

The village is breaking. Their generation is too big for the barriers that have been holding in power and prejudice since before anyone can remember. It's breaking because Neji is more than a member of the branch house, because Sasuke came back, and because Naruto will be hokage.

Sakura sees the tell-tale cracks in Hidden Leaf as easily as if they're letting light into a dark room. And maybe she's just as tired of the dark as all of them are, because soon she too finds herself swinging at those village walls with her monstrous strength and healing her friends so they can keep going. _(punch)_ She doesn't know what's on the other side _(punch)_ or what they'll build in its place _(punch)_ but she thinks it's about time _(punch)_ to find out.

#17: Blank

"Welcome to our village, Naruto-sama." The raikage, a willowy middle-aged man with long silver hair, bowed slightly.

"Hey Arashi..." Naruto petered to a stop as Kakashi caught his eye and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. "Thank you, Arashi-sama. Leaf hopes..." He struggled to remember the dialogue he'd been practicing their entire trip to Lightening. The raikage waited patiently; his smile was good-natured if a little mischievous. "We hope that mutual friendship and common goals will continue to unite our lands." Naruto said, immensely pleased with himself.

The raikage nodded. "I assure you, the feeling is mutual, hokage-sama." With that he turned and began to lead the way towards his office. "Now, I am well acquainted with the "Copy-Ninja" Kakashi, but I'm afraid I don't know your other guest." The older kage glanced at Neji who walked silently beside Kakashi. "The eyes are familiar. Hyuuga, if I don't miss my guess?"

Naruto shrugged. "Something like that, but... hmm... I'm drawing a blank...seems like I can never remember his name." He paused thoughtfully while Neji just glared at the back of the blonde's head. "Oh well, it doesn't matter. Say, Arashi-sama, tell us about the lightening tamers we've been hearing so much about."

Kakashi sighed and put a steadying hand on the affronted Hyuuga's shoulder. He hoped that Naruto wouldn't treat Sakura's boyfriend like this the entire trip.

#18: Balloon

POP!

The balloon wheezed as the air inside it propelled the blue bit around the room before it fell to the floor.

"Damn it!" Sakura stamped in frustration and sent her foot down through the floorboards.

Neji sighed as he stood from his last touch-up to the wall. "You know, if I didn't find watching you so amusing I'd probably be upset that you keep destroying the house."

#19: Balcony

"Isn't this romantic?" Sakura asked dreamily, her hands braced against the railing as she gazed up at a sky filled to bursting with stars.

"I suppose. Although I don't pretend to know why looking at the sky from a balcony is so different from looking at it from the ground."

Sakura smiled. "That's because you're a romantic."

"What?"

"Shhh, just watch the sky."

#20: Bane

Surprisingly, Sakura's name appears in the Bingo Book before Neji's does. It's after a horrible mission in Earth Country that Sakura gains the nickname "Healing Bane" for poisoning the water supply of a small city, all the while pretending to heal the citizens who beg to die before they do.

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_Fifty Themes II: Part Two  
-Sunpies-_

_For Lady Silvamord_


	8. Fifty Themes II: Part Three

_Fifty Themes II: Part Three  
-Sunpies-_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto_

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#21: Quiet

Neji nearly cries with relief when he is ordered by the Rokudaime to take a reconnaissance mission in Lightening Country because with a four-year-old and a new born at home there doesn't seem to be a single quiet place in the world.

When Sakura is home there is always some kind of noise going on in the background. Whether it's music on the radio, her children arguing outside, or Naruto and Sasuke fighting in the next room, she likes to have something to remind her that she's not alone.

#22: Quirks

Sakura's quirks are almost all visible from the first introductions. There are a lot of them, she's a woman after all, and Neji doesn't understand half of the mood swings, the attachments, and the fears she harbors. But all things considered, he bears her idiosyncrasies with very little time lost to confusion (or at the very least, obvious confusion).

It takes a little while for Sakura to notice it, but somewhere along the line she discovered that Neji is strange. As he yells hoarsely at her about their unwashed children, she thinks that perhaps the weirdest thing about him is his penchant to bottle things up until he explodes (and at their favorite restaurant to boot).

#23: Question

"I'm here to ask for Mitsuyo's hand in marriage." Without reason, Neji knows the boy looking brashly at him is in his mid-twenties. A quick once over tells Neji that the boy also put at least some thought into this moment –his wild black hair is almost neat looking and his pale skin has been scrubbed raw.

"No." Neji responds, glaring at the boy's audacity. If Mitsuyo had been interested in the youth standing before him, he's certain she would have asked her father before she started anything. As he has never seen this… child before, he can only assume the worst. "You can't stalk a Hyuuga." He informs coldly.

"Father, no!" Mitsuyo appears next to the new boy and in a sudden and particularly uncharacteristic show of affection, throws herself at him. "You just don't understand our love!" She gasps between exaggerated sobs.

It is all Neji can do to simply gape at the spectacle for a few seconds. Where is _his_ daughter? Is this what love does to women? He thinks back vaguely and cannot recall Sakura ever being like this. Frowning irritably, he states "I don't even know who you are."

The boy grins and his blue eyes alight with a familiar mischief. "I'm Uchiha Ramen."

"Uchiha… Ramen?" Neji can literally feel the frown carving deeper lines in his face. There is so much wrong with that name.

"Yes," the boy states proudly, even with Mitsuyo blubbering around his shoulders. "My father, Naruto, so loved ramen that he named his son after that great food. I too, sir, shall carry on the noble tradition!"

"Naruto's son… Uchiha?" No…

-

With a jolt Neji is thrown from the dream and wakes up breathing rapidly, sweat causing his hair to stick to his forehead and neck in a thick web. "No."

Sakura rolls over drowsily, "no what?"

"Uzumaki and the Uchiha's love child, Uchiha _Ramen_, wanted to marry Mitsuyo… and she was…" He mumbles deliriously. When he says it aloud it sounds so silly.

Sakura is quiet for a second and then yawns. "I always thought Naruto would be the man… go back to sleep, Neji."

#24: Quarrel

Sakura pegs their first fight as a great accomplishment for the both of them. It took a while, but she finally goaded him off of his pedestal long enough for him to consider it worth the time to yell like any other sane person in a relationship.

#25: Quitting

"I hereby tender my resignation as ANBU captain and active jounin." Neji places the thick pad of paper on the Rokudaime's unsightly desk.

Kakashi glances up from his crudely done drawing of a scantily clad woman. "I understand, Hyuuga-sama." The new suffix still feels strange to both of them. "Your work will be missed. Have you any ideas for another captain to take your place?"

Neji nods. "Ai has traveled with my team for a few missions and I think they would look to him after a time."

"I'll see to it then." Kakashi says, although his thoughts seem to be elsewhere. As Neji turns to leave, he adds in his most toneless voice, "If this man were to become a leader, he wouldn't ever be able to stop being one."

"No. He wouldn't."

"…You're dismissed."

#26: Jump

Sakura estimates that she has broken more than twenty different bones in her body. That is the way missions and training go; a certain amount of damage is expected. In a way she gets used to the painful and partially humiliating experience of explaining how and why she was so careless or unskilled as to end up with a broken bone.

However, nothing prepares her for the embarrassment of breaking her tailbone while jumping down from a tree behind Neji and missing the landing.

#27: Jester

"Stay away from my son, Uzumaki!" Sakura thinks, as she peels an apple with a kunai, that she's never seen her husband so upset. Well, that's not entirely true. There was the Kakashi-umeboshi incident, but that was pretty infuriating and it still irritated her from time to time.

"Oh come on Neji-niisan, loosen up. The kid was just having some fun." Naruto replies with a cheeky grin. "Besides, I think it looks better like this."

The Hokages' monument, towering above all four of them, still shines in places with fresh paint.

"I refuse to have you corrupt my son with your appalling lack of propriety!"

"Hey, I only taught him to belch the one song. The rest he learned on his own."

Kakashi, hand rubbing his chin thoughtfully, accedes as though commenting on a particularly interesting piece of art, "I think it looks better this way. Festive." His hidden smile only seems to make the situation worse.

#28: Juggling

"Always keep one ball in the air. They come down in a quick arch so make sure that there's one on hand to follow the fall of the other. Good morning, mom." Kuuya hands three of the sand-filled cloth balls to his younger brother who, in turns, tosses both balls up or throws one of them too high.

"It should help him to develop some hand-eye coordination. He definitely needs it." Eleven-year-old Kuuya explains as his six-year-old brother once again fails to catch the third ball.

Sakura watches her eldest son watch her youngest, resting her chin in her hands. "You should try to be more understanding. He's only six, there's still time for him to develop skills at his own pace."

"I guess." Kuuya admits reluctantly, white eyes examining his mother's face for disapproval and finding none. "I'm just trying to help." He says sullenly.

Sakura smiles. "It's a good thing, you helping your brother. It's good for both of you. But if you're always saying what's wrong and never what's right, he'll be unable to see anything else."

Kuuya frowns pensively, looking quite impressively like his father. "So I'm supposed to be more understanding, help him, and balance good and bad stuff I say?" To his mother's grin in the affirmative, he sighs. "That seems like a lot of stuff to do."

Laughing, Sakura ruffles his dark hair. "You'll get the rhythm of it eventually."

#29: Jealousy

Sakura is jealous of the way Neji can sometimes seem untouchable. It's in the way he walks, the way he talks, and the way he watches the world when no one's looking –as if everything is just passing through. She's also jealous of his ability to walk through a snow storm and still look pretty hot.

Neji is jealous of Sakura's innate capacity to care for those she loves. He's also jealous of her affinity for healing. He has tried it on his own several times and botched things fairly splendidly.

#30: Just

Sakura watches the myriads of decisions Neji must make as clan head and sometimes wonders if she knows her husband at all.

It takes her more than a year to discover that the Hyuuga clan head is a very different person than the man she knows and loves. In that year she also finds that rulers can rarely hope to be kind, but they can hope to be just.

--

_Fifty Themes II: Part Three  
-Sunpies-_

_For Lady Silvamord_


	9. Fifty Themes II: Part Four

_Fifty Themes II: Part Four  
-Sunpies-_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto_

--

#31: Victorious

Neji and Sasuke very blatantly do not get along -so much so that the hokage has made a mental note to never put them on the same ANBU team. No one in Konoha knows why two of the village's best shinobi can't get along, but everyone has their theories.

Many people think it could be the long standing contest of wills between the Hyuuga and the Uchiha that cause the unbearable tension. After all, they reason, being among the best and being the best are very different things.

One might say that it is because they're both stubborn, stuck-up, pricks (the one who might have said this was Naruto).

Only Neji and Sasuke know that somewhere along the line Sasuke has come to realize that you can lose something you never even realized you wanted.

"You don't deserve her."

"That may be. But I have her."

#32: Fire

Just after Kuuya's fourth birthday Neji is forced to travel to Sand where many of the most powerful clan heads are gathering for some sort of political mess. This is, unfortunately, the same month that Tsunade decides to leave Sakura to the reorganization of the training program for new medic nins who would specialize in chakra regulatory injuries and disorders.

After the first week of staying home to look after their son, Sakura finds that Kuuya's constant oscillation between playing, training, and wanting attention is not conducive to untangling the neglected program's snarled problems. Normally she would just suck it up and tell herself to deal with it until her husband could return. However, the medics nins interested in this vital program were beginning to drop away in response to the poor training provided.

So she hired the only shinobi with the time or energy to care for her hyperactive child –Naruto's boy.

In retrospect, she knows the decision was a bad one but the twelve-year-old looks so much like his mother that it's easy to forget that he's Naruto's. That is, until Sakura comes home one evening to find Sasuke's girl, Kuuya and his cousin standing in the charred ruins of the training courts drenched with the water from the drained lake nearby and reeking of smoke.

#33: Lost

If there was ever a time in Neji's life as a Hyuuga where family was not synonymous with honor, silence, and duty, he's forgotten it. It's likely that he never had it to begin with and he logically tells himself that perhaps no family is unlike his.

It is on his first visit to Sakura's plain, normal, typical home with her static, pleasant, ordinary parents –her father works with corporate travel and her mother is a homemaker- that he realizes what he gained and what he lost by being a Hyuuga.

#34: Sacred

To Neji, family is sacred. It is the one thing that remains set aside, apart from every other thing in his life. The center of honor, duty and pride, it is a sun; it is the celestial body around which everything spins, illuminating the darkness to make the world bearable.

Sakura believes that they are shinobi and that means nothing is sacred. If she ever believed something could be set apart her son's dead body cracked that image like ice against warm glass.

#35: Sarcasm

Romantics would think that Sakura's naturally sunny disposition would contrast Neji's cynical take on the world and their conflicting personalities would produce an attraction.

In truth, Sakura and Neji are different but not as different as one would at first believe.

Nonetheless, it is still a bit weird for Ino when she hears that derisive snort from her best friend rather than the stoic ANBU captain.

#36: Sordid

When Neji discovered that Sakura wasn't completely against the idea of a threesome he broke down and did something he only does every two or three years –he laughed.

To her blushing, infuriated expression he smiled and explained "Isn't it ironic that the one of the most infamously prudish people in the village is willing to pull a stranger into our bed?"

"…Don't you mean my bed?"

Thus ends the story of how Neji simultaneously lost his chance at a threesome and wound up sleeping on the couch for three weeks.

#37: Soliloquy

The Hyuuga children grow up with a mother who raises and disciplines them and a father who trains them. It isn't a bad childhood although the children often feel distanced from a father who seems intimidating and reserved.

When Tatsuhiko and Mitsuyo are old enough to regularly cause problems around the house–when they enter into their teen years- their father's reticence melts away to reveal an dictatorial disciplinarian who punishes his subjects by lecturing them to death.

-

Neji despairs that his children never listen to him, forcing him to repeat the same ideas innumerable times.

#38: Sojourn

Neji dies of a heart attack at the age of sixty-two. Alone in the bed he once shared with his wife, his children's children now carrying on the legacy he fought so hard for, he thinks that he never expected all of this to last forever.

So he rolls over to her side of the bed and waits for the trip to end.

#39: Share

Neji is angered at first when he discovers that he must share Sakura with other people. He is her husband and it is like a hot knife of betrayal to realize that she still wants the company of Uzumaki, the Uchiha and numerous others.

What he never suspected was that by taking a share of Sakura's life, he was taking a share of theirs as well.

#40: Solitary

"Is something wrong? You look… less than pleased." Neji commented delicately as he returned a scroll to the family archives.

Before one of the bookcases, Sakura sat on the floor, sunshine from the day outside pouring through the window and onto the cards in front of her. "It's nothing. I just can't seem to win this game."

Moving so that he could assess the cards while still allowing Sakura her light, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Within a moment, his deft hands quickly moved three piles into one allowing him to flip over two new cards. "There. An ace should help." He finished uninterestedly.

Sakura ground her teeth as she slammed the ace on the floor above the other cards. "Dammit, Neji! You know, there's a reason they call this game solitaire!"

--

_Fifty Themes II: Part Four  
-Sunpies-_

_For Lady Silvamord_


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